The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

It is the 1940s. The war is having little effect on nine year old Bruno, who lives in a cocoon of privilege in a select suburb of Berlin. Then his father, one of the new elite in the army, is prompted by Hitler, and the family is forced to leave Berlin for a dreary rural area that Bruno mispronounces as 'Out-With'.

The horror of what is happening beyond the barbed wire fences that he can see from his bedroom never occurs to Bruno. It is not until he meets Schmuel, the boy in the stripped pyjamas, who lives on the other side of the wire, does Bruno realise that he is no longer in Germany but in Poland. He has no notion of what is happening in the world of Schmuel until it is too late for him to escape its horrors.

At first Bruno's naiveté seems unbelievable. But then I remembered Speer, whose children knew nothing of his activities, or of the evil nature of 'Uncle Adolf'.

Even so, the ease with which Bruno and Schmuel converse across the wire seems unlikely. What about guards and dogs keeping watch on inmates?

This reservation apart, the book is a chastening and timely picture of how adults can deceive themselves and others and involve everyone in the horrors of history.

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas By John Boyne from David Fickling Books, €16.50. Ages 9 plus

Tony Hickey